


Cheat The Reaper

by UAs_Fics



Category: South Park
Genre: Grim Reapers, M/M, Minor Creek, One-Shot, Stenny-Week 2018, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2018-10-17
Packaged: 2019-08-03 12:36:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16326374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UAs_Fics/pseuds/UAs_Fics
Summary: He was warned this target had avoided death before, but Stan was not going to let this 'Kenny McCormick' guy cheat him. You can bet your life on that!Stenny Week - Death





	Cheat The Reaper

**Author's Note:**

> For [Stenny Week](https://stenny-week.tumblr.com/), Day 3 Death

* * *

* * *

“‘Kenny McCormick.’” Stan read. “‘Age nineteen, lives in South Park, Colorado, Roman Catholic, death by asphyxia.’”

The other reapers around the table exchanged looks. Cartman laughed into his hand. 

“Pulled a good one, Stan.” He snorted.

“What?” Stan frowned. “Seems like a normal death to me.”

“Most deaths in that town are weird, dude,” Tweek looked up from his paperwork. “Craig had to reap a man there once, and the paperwork for him took ages!” He glanced at his boyfriend as he worked on his own papers.

Craig didn’t look up. “Yeah, time and logic are fucked up there. I don’t know if its because some way lines cross there or because of the cult there, but if you make any mistake, no matter how small, then your target can avoid death altogether.” He tapped his pen against his paper. “What’s the death date for that newscaster I reaped last week? Tenth or eleventh?”

“The tenth, I think,” Tweek told him. 

“Thanks, babe.” He leaned over to press a kiss to his cheek.

Cartman rolled his eyes. “Get a room.” To Stan, he said, “yeah, South Park is a fucked up place, but I mean that you got _Kenny McCormick_. That guy isn’t human, you know. I’ve overheard reapers that were sent to get him before, and he has unworldly powers that let him cheat us.”

Stan pursed his lips. It was not an uncommon occurrence for someone to make a deal with a reaper to avoid death. There was even a special form just for the scenario that the reaper lost their deal. It was an old tradition that Stan doubted would ever die.

“No, that’s not possible,” Stan muttered, shaking his head. “Cheating a reaper once or twice, but you make it sound like he’s done this multiple times.”

“He has,” Cartman stated matter of factly. “At least ten times now, maybe more.”

“Bull shit.” Craig jabbed his pen at Cartman. “No one can cheat a reaper that many times. The Big Man wouldn’t allow that.”

“If this kid was human, but he’s not!” Cartman threw his arms up. The air movement from his action sent some of Tweek's paperwork off the table.

Craig glared as he reached down to help pick up the loose papers. 

“Still, I call bullshit.” Craig grumbled, then louder, he demanded to know, “Why are you even sitting with us? Go pester someone else!” 

“This is the best table in the workroom. Closest to the snack machine and under a vent.” Cartman explained, pointing to the snack machine and vent in turn. “Also, no. You move. I claimed this table our first day.”

“You can't claim a table like that. This isn't fucking middle school.” Craig growled.

“Craig, it's fine.” Tweek shook his head. As the two boyfriends began to bicker, Stan stood up. Cartman propped himself up on his elbow, watching the couple with an impish grin.

Stan folded the paper with his target up and shoved it into his pocket.

“I'll tell you if it's bullshit when I get back,” Stan promised, but he doubted anyone was listening.

* * *

Stan wasn't sure how the ramshackle building was still standing. The roof sagged and pieces of the siding were missing. A clear plastic replaced some of the broken window panes. One good storm could probably topple the whole house over.

Stan watched as a family of opossums crawled out from inside the trunk of a rusted out car in the lawn. He sidestepped around them as they marched towards the back of the house. Like all other living creatures, the animals didn't actually see him, nor could they have interacted with him unless Stan wanted them too. Which, given the fleas and ticks and mud on the vermin's fur, Stan was more than alright with.

He stole a breath and started towards the front door when it swung open, slamming against the siding.

“Fucking bitch!” A man yelled as he stormed out. 

“Yeah, just go, you drunk bastard! Don't even think about coming back here!” A woman screamed. 

“Fuck you!” The man snapped as he left the front lawn.

“Fuck you!” The woman replied just as angrily before slamming the door.

Stan shook the shock from himself before he made his way up the walk. He paused a moment to look the way the man went. The man had already disappeared down the road to town. Stan knew he was too old to be the Kenny he was looking for, so he didn't dwell on him long.

He walked through the front door into a messy living room. The woman sat on the ripped couch, a cigarette dangling from her mouth and her forehead in her hand. She took a shuddering breath then grabbed for the purse on the low coffee table and began to dig through it. After a moment she had a pair of car keys in her hands. 

Stan watched as the woman stood. She ran her hands through her hair and shouted, “Kenny, I'm going to get your sister from art club. I'm locking the door, so if your son of a bitch father comes back, don't you dare let him in.”

From farther in the house, a voice called, “Alright, Mom.”

She walked right past Stan and out the door. He wondered if she planned on driving the rusty opossum car or not, but didn't look out the window to check. He had a job to do, after all.

The voice from a moment ago came from down the hall, so Stan wandered that way, standing tall and imposing with his scythe in hand and hood pulled down to shadow his eyes.

If nothing else, at least Stan looked the part of the grim reaper. 

There were three rooms down the hall. The first room must have belonged to the parents, one bed in the middle of the room, pictures of the what Stan assumed were their children on the walls. Clothes and empty beer cans littered the floor. 

The next room Stan peeked into was the daughter’s. Posters of whatever teenybopper star was popular covered the pink painted walls. Somewhere under the pile of cheap stuffed animals, there had to be a bed, Stan assumed. 

As Stan turned to leave the room, he heard a coughing. He froze a moment as the coughing began to comingle with wheezing. 

‘Asphyxia’ The paper had said. That was how Kenny died. Stan suppressed a shutter. Reaper or not, he hated actually seeing the death occur. He could handle the aftermath, but watching the life fade from the living’s eyes made him uneasy. 

He idled outside the door until the house fell silent then phased in.

The room looked completely normal for a nineteen-year-old from a hick town: Playboy foldout tacked to the wall, clothes on the floor, a messy bed. The only thing Stan wouldn’t expect to find normally was the corpse laid out across the desk and the soul standing behind it.

“Kenny McCormick,” Stan announced, raising his scythe just enough to be threatening, “I have come to escort your soul to the after--”

“Oh, hey, you’re new,” Kenny commented warmly. “Gimme just a second here.” He began to pat his pockets. “Mine taking off the hood, by the way? It’s too dreary for a Wednesday afternoon.” 

“I'm keeping it on.” Stan held his ground, gripping his scythe tighter. “We need to get going.”

Kenny pulled a piece of paper and pen from his pocket. He set it down on the desk and began to write as he spoke, “What? Got a hot date?”

“What? I--no!” Stan scowled. “I don’t want to waste time.”

“The dead can’t waste time. That’s kind of the point.” Kenny quipped. With a flourish, he held out the paper. “Here. Since you’re in such a hurry.”

“What’s this?” Stan shifted his scythe to one hand before taking the paper. 

“Your form?” Kenny raised an eyebrow then shook his head. “Goddamnit. I get your assignments are mostly random and all, but I wish they’d assign one person to me so I don’t have to keep explaining this.”

“Explain what?” Stan narrowed his eyes. “Is this how you keep cheating death?” He waved the paper around. “Faking forms?”

“I’ve never cheated a reaper.” Kenny scoffed, then walked around to Stan’s side before jabbing his finger at the symbol in the corner of the paper. “You can’t take my soul. See here? The Big Man’s authorization and everything.”

Finally, Stan took a closer look at the paper. The color drained from his face. No doubt, that was The Big Man’s seal in the corner. Stan quickly scanned the form for before looking back up in shock.

“You’re immortal?” He asked, his jaw hanging open.

Kenny nodded. “Uh-huh.” He strolled back to his corpse. “Watch this.” Before Stan could stop him, he raised his hand and slapped the back of his body. A flash of white light blinded Stan for a moment. As he blinked the stars from his vision, a coughing filled the room. Kenny, back in his body, sat up straight in his chair, beating at his chest, until a spittle-covered bone came flying out of his mouth.

“There we go,” Kenny mumbled. He kicked back his chair before reaching under the desk. A moment later, he set two soda cans on the desktop. He cracked one open and chugged nearly half of it in one go.

“I...I don’t get it.” Stan pushed back his hood to get a better look at his assigned target. Kenny was thin and a touch shorter than average. He had a thin nose and faint freckles across his cheeks. His hair was a mess of straw that sat atop his head.

In all regards, there was nothing remarkable about him. Nothing that on first glance would make anyone think this person was an immortal. 

Kenny sent Stan a sympathetic smile. “Long story short, some local elder god cult cursed me when I was little. I can’t die. It’s a pain in the ass for everyone, so to make things a little more streamlined for you reapers, it was made so I would just have one of those forms on my soul at all times.”

Stan shook his head. “Why have us come at all? What’s the point if you’re just going to come back to life?”

Kenny looked around the floor of his desk as he spoke. “It’s not always this easy. Sometimes my body is way too fucked up to easily fix, so I have to go to the world you reapers live in until my body regenerates.”

“I’ve never seen you around before.” Stan furrowed his brow.

“Yeah, well,” Kenny dropped out of his chair to his knees, “once when I was, like, seven, I snuck into a file room and got to playing with a rubber stamp and important papers. I got both chewed out and my privilege to wander around your world revoked.” 

Stan frowned. He vaguely remembered hearing about something like that from some of the reaper veterans. A little kid screwing around once caused a huge mess up in deaths and life expectancies. It apparently took nearly two years to get everything back in order and was the reason children had to be accompanied by an adult at all times in the head office.

Kenny popped back up from the side of his desk, smiling proudly. Hopping to his feet, he dropped a red and white paper bucket onto the desktop. Stan raised an eyebrow, stepping closer.

“The Colonel's best,” Kenny explained, gesturing to the fried chicken. “Been saving my nickels and dimes for weeks to afford it. You can have some if you’d like. Don’t worry, I’ll take the one I knocked onto the floor.” He grabbed a breast from the top, blowing a small ball of lint off it. 

Stan eyed the bucket for a moment then shrugged. He deserved something for coming all the way to Earth, after all, so he reached into the bucket. 

The moment his hand fell on the thigh piece, he let himself become corporeal. Instantly, gravity took hold, and he dropped the inch from the floor down. 

It had been ages since Stan had eaten food from this world, and damn, he forgot how good it could be. It took most of Stan’s restraint not to greedily chow down on the thigh. Kenny watched him with an amused expression half-hidden behind his breast piece.

“Soooo,” Kenny stretched out the word, “You’re kind of young to be a reaper. I always thought you were all older people.”

Stan swallowed, absentmindedly wiping his mouth on his robe sleeve. “No, this is the normal age most of us start. I’ve been reaping for about year now.”

“What’s it like? Is it hard?” Kenny pulled a sliver of white meat from the breast and dropped it in his mouth. “I know there are different kinds of reapers, but they don’t tell me much otherwise.”

“Yeah, I’m just a normal reaper. I lead adults who die of natural causes to the next world for processing. It’s an alright gig. I’d rather this than be one of those guys who has to deal with murder victims or children.”

Kenny shuttered. “I had to stay in the office of one of those kid reaper guys until I was sixteen. He had clown pictures all over and made these really shitty jokes. I really hated that guy.” 

“Yeah, most of us try not to talk to him much,” Stan admitted with a shoulder raise. “I have a friend who is a way better comedian than him anyway. I’m not missing much.” Stan paused a beat then asked, “So, do you have friends? Or are you just, uh--”

“A brooding loner suffering from his cursed life or torment?” Kenny grinned. “Nah, I’m a people person.” He pulled out his phone from his pocket and began to fiddle with it. “I’ve got lots of friends. Like this guy.” With greasy fingers, Kenny pointed to the phone. 

A photo had been pulled up of another young adult with his eyebrows up in surprise and half the cheese and toppings from a slice of pizza hanging from his mouth. 

“That’s Kyle,” Kenny explained. “He’s an old friend, loyal, morally good, and has some weird sixth sense going on, so he can see you reapers too. He gives me a heads up every now and again so sometimes I know death is coming.”

Stan took the phone and eyed the photo a moment. Humans with sensitivities to the supernatural weren’t uncommon, but usually, their abilities were weak and very limited. To be able to actually _see_ reapers was extraordinarily rare.

Maybe it had something to do with all the oddities that happened around South Park.

“That must make things easier,” Stan replied as he returned the phone. 

“Hell yeah, it does.” He leaned back in his chair. “You can sit on the desk if you want. I don’t care.” 

Stan shook his head. “Nah, I’m fine. Thank you, though.”

“Yeah, it’s not that comfy.” Kenny dropped the remains of his chicken next to the bone he’d choked on. “Or, so I’ve been told. I’m not the one who's bent over it, if you know what I mean.” 

Stan nearly burst out laughing when he saw the wink Kenny gave him. He coughed into his elbow to cover his unprofessional snickers before he placed his bones next to the others. He rubbed his hands off on the inside of his robes. When he got back, he’d have to send them in to be cleaned. He’d write it off as an accident, so the guys down in dry cleaning can’t make fun of him for wasting time chatting with his target.

“I need to head back.” Stan let himself slipped back into the realm of intangibility and returned to floating above the ground. “Thanks for the chicken, dude.”

Kenny shot him a finger gun. “No problem. You’re fun to talk to, uh...”

“Stan.” He filled in. 

“Stan.” He nodded back. “You’re fun to talk to, Stan.”

Stan moved towards the door, only to pause a moment. He took a breath before turning back. 

“Hey, next time you die for a while, you can ask for me to watch you if you want.”

Kenny’s eyes went wide. “What?”

“Yeah, you know, if I’m at the base, you can sit with me and my friends while we do our work. I doubt any of them will mind.” Stan smiled.

Kenny’s entire face lit up in delight. For a moment, Stan was sure he was going to leap from his chair and try to hug him, but Kenny remained seated, though he seemed to shake with excitement.

“Dude, that would be great! I’ve only ever seen the main offices before. Thank you!” He ran his fingers through his hair several times seemingly just to do something with his hands. It was an adorable action, and Stan felt his heart flutter just a bit. 

Pulling his hood back up, Stan hoped his cheeks remained the same color. He opened his mouth to speak again when something rattled the window, making both of them jump. 

“Kenny! Kenny!” The man from before, presumably Kenny’s father, beat at the window. “Open up!”

Kenny rolled his eyes, then sent Stan an apologetic smile. Stan waved his hand dismissively. His own father used to do the same thing after his parents' divorce. If Kenny was anything like him in the matter, then it was best to not make a big deal about it.

“I’ll leave you to him,” Stan said, back stepping towards the door. 

“Yeah, bye, Stan. It was awesome to meet you. I’ll probably be seeing you soon enough.” Kenny gave a small wave so that his father couldn’t see it from the window. He then spun around his chair and yelled, “No, Dad. Mom’s pissed. You’re in the dog house tonight.”

Stan smiled to himself as he left Kenny. A selfish hope that Kenny would die enough to visit his world and stay with him crossed his mind. He entertained the idea as he walked back through the messy house. Kenny seemed like a genuinely nice person, especially given his circumstances. Just about anyone else Stan knew would have laid right into the brooding immortal stereotype, himself included. 

Stan continued to think about his new, immortal, friend all the way back to the reaper world.

* * *

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> The fic I wrote for the Spooky!verse theme (tomorrow's) deals with death and deeper things like that already, so I didn't feel like writing more of that, so I decided to play loose goosey with the theme.  
>  ~~Which everyone should get used to because I did that for pretty much ALL of the fics I wrote for Creek-Week next week.~~  
> 


End file.
